Children of the Sun
by Sage- Dark Sentinel
Summary: AU. AMUTO. In the year 2090, a blue-haired orphan is fitted with an artificial brain, and he's never questioned his life. Until he meets a girl. A beautiful girl with pink hair, and golden eyes, who shows him what freedom is... R
1. Free to Fly

**Author's Note:** What is emotion, and must we need it to live? If you didn't feel bored, you'd get a lot more work done. If you didn't feel sad, you would never have to look like a wuss in front of your friends. But we still take a stance, and say we need it. Why? Well, that's the issue I'm exploring. Sorta. Kinda.

I would like to thank my mom for actually bothering to answer me on my many questions about child psychology and development.

---

**Children of the Sun**

01: _Free To Fly_

---

_**2090, city of Hyperia (formerly Japan)**_

_**Monday, 5.00 a.m.**_

_**Test Lab no. 590, Easter Corp.**_

Tsukiyomi Ikuto had the distinction of being the first ever child to have an artificial brain. He'd been found brain-dead, drifting on the waves near the shores of a seaside town named Amelie, presumably having crashed on the rocks from a boating accident. At that time, a city doctor had been conducting a survey in Amelie (trying to see if certain types of prawn affected the human brain) and he'd realised this was the golden opportunity for his colleagues. They'd been experimenting with animals, mice and the like, but not on humans. And this one was an orphan child. They could literally see their invention grow up.

The child was brought back to Easter Corporation, Hyperia's largest research facilities, and fitted with an experimental artificial brain. He was only four or five, as a quick glance would tell, and his memories were all faces, objects, colours and basic words. They performed a number of operations on Ikuto, as he had come to be called. And when all was complete, they tested him. To their utter dismay, the AI did not give him emotion. How do you ask a computer, a cold, impersonal object, to project what we take for granted--happiness, sadness, loneliness?

Undeterred, they ran more tests. They would hold out an object, and Ikuto's AI would scan it, and reply what it was with a blank stare. They'd point to one another, ask him who they were, and he'd reply correctly. They asked him questions, ranging from one-plus-one-equals-two to complicated mathematical equations, and he'd get it all right. It was phenomenal. But there was one flaw. One of the doctors showed him a picture of his parents, found from scanning his brain, and the delicate systems of Ikuto's new brain nearly exploded.

They weren't kidding. The memory seared his mind, sending the manmade neurons into a frenzy. The electricity could have overloaded, had it not been for a quick-thinking junior lab assistant nobody talked to. She quickly asked him a math question. Distracted, his brain calmed down, having something practical to think about. Since that day, the lab assistant was promoted to a higher rank, and Ikuto was kept in a whitewashed room, with a white-tiled floor and snow-coloured furniture. They ran their tests quickly and refused to get close to him, didn't even dare to touch him even, because too much of _emotion_ would cause an overload again.

They viewed him as a test subject. A lab rat. Nothing more than their little Frankenstein.

And Ikuto knew that.

---

_**Monday, 7.30 a.m. **_

_**Aerion Street, outside Easter Corp.**_

_Shuuuum!_

The wind blew in her hair as Amu windsurfed through the city on her hoverboard. Hoverboards, unlike most of the technologies the world took for granted, it wasn't made in Hyperia but was rather a Russian invention, by a woman named Serafine Markov and her husband, Tesla Markov. They had the idea of using magnetic plates supercharged with a burst of electricity so that it would work against the world's magnetic field, thus making the hoverboards stay in the air. After the Markovs patented the hoverboards, the world's mode of transportation changed forever. They would go on to make hovercars and hoverbikes, but the 'boards were the most popular.

This particular factoid wasn't in Amu's mind that morning. All she cared about was getting to school on time. One hand on her bag slung over her shoulder and the other stuck out to balance herself, Amu swerved around buildings, nearly sent a little old lady out for a spin on her doddery old hoverbike into a wall, and had to slalom around a small army of little children on miniature hoverboards.

"Amu!"

She paused momentarily to see her coursemate, Souma Kuukai, doing the same, only he had both arms stretched out and his bag precariously swaying from his neck. His hoverboard, a Daichi '56, was much older than her new Suu model (which she had begged her parents no end to buy for her during Christmas), having been much abused by Kuukai's big brothers, but he still managed to pull all sorts of mad stunts on it and still not crash the board. Amu shuddered as she saw Kuukai wave at her while doing a quick loop-de-loop--the last time _she_ tried that one, she blew her poor Ran '29 to pieces and had to go to hospital.

Kuukai cut in front of a hovercar with a couple making out inside it, making a face as he did so, and hovered beside Amu. "Finished your assignment for Mr Nikaidou yet?"

"Yep," Amu laughed as she said it. Mr Nikaidou, a clumsy man with messy brown hair, had set them an essay on 'Dangers You Might Face While On A Hoverboard (And How To Avoid Them)', giving Amu a wink as he read out the title. In addition to crashing the Ran, her second hoverboard, a blue Miki Spade, had been trashed after its magnetic plate entirely failed to work. As it plummeted to the ground, Amu had shut her eyes and hoped it would be over soon, when suddenly someone caught her by the wrist. She opened one eye, and the other, and the first thing she saw was a platinum-coloured hoverboard she vaguely remembered as being a Kiseki Platinum. That was the day she met Hotori Tadase...

"That's great." Kuukai smiled. "I wrote about the dangers of _not looking cool. _Do you know how many young hoverboard surfers these days don't even bother to customize their boards? I mean, all they do is stick a nametag on it. So not cool."

They both burst out laughing as they made their way to Seiyo Academy. As they sailed past the futuristic monolith of Easter Corporations, they barely looked at a boy their age, gazing out of his window. He'd watched people pass by before, of course, but they were always busy people, slaves to the masters of work and time. Not like these two. They were _free_, and happy to be free.

For the first time, Ikuto wondered what it was like to be free, too.

---

_**Monday, 8.45 a.m.**_

_**Hoverboarding Theory Courseroom, Seiyo Academy**_

At Seiyo Academy, students were allowed to choose a course to take. Amu, like Kuukai, took Hoverboarding. She'd debated over taking Art, or maybe Music, but finally decided that hoverboards were cool. The other two courses were firmly crossed out: Philosophy and History. The first time she surfed on a school-issue hoverboard, an old off-white model with a dented magnetic plate, it was somewhat giddying to see the world play out below you, and the sense of desperation as you realised you were miles above in the air with nothing to hold onto, and you could only trust your hoverboard to keep you in the air...

The feeling faded with time, though Amu still didn't really get over the lurch in her stomach as the hoverboard was switched on and she was lifted into the air. And then Kuukai had brought the Daichi to school and showed off with it when Mr Nikaidou wasn't there. He made it look so simple. Amu learned the hard way that the Daichi was built and customized to be a stunt board, and the Ran was built for getting from one place to another _without_ stunts.

Tadase didn't take Hoverboarding; from his delicate, angelic looks he probably took something like Art or Music. She only saw him at the school board docking area, but they'd never really talked...

Amu was in class, doing theory lessons. She hated theory; what they did was learn about hoverboards--who made them, how they were made, how they were fixed, the different models, and so on. The practical lessons were exciting: they went to the roof and practiced moves. The fact that students had broken their legs and arms before didn't make any of them scared; it just added to the thrill factor. Suddenly she felt someone poking her in the back. Amu turned to see Kuukai passing her a sheet of paper. It was crumpled and torn at one corner, but when she unrolled it she understood why he seemed so excited.

_Got the moves? Got the confidence?_

_Come on down to the City Square on 17th October, 9 a.m.!_

_Bright Star Enterprises is holding a Street Race! Up for grabs are:_

_3rd prize:__ Sweet Surprise model, __2nd prize:__ Wildfire model, __1st prize:__ Dia Navigator model_

_There are 10 hoverboard maintenance kits for the consolation prize winners._

_Head to the nearest Bright Star store to get the entry form today! Hope to see you._

Amu nearly squealed. If there was one thing she loved above all else, it was hoverboards. A few years of studying about it did it to her, like all other hoverboard enthuatists before her. The Dia Navigator! It would make her the envy of Seiyo Academy. And maybe... Tadase would notice her more after that? She glanced at Kuukai, excited. She was going to _win _this thing. She _had _to.

City Square, watch out.

Hinamori Amu was going to _ace_ it.

---

**Author's Note: **REVIEW!!!1!! It gets more Amuto-y in later chappies, don't worry.


	2. Know Your Enemy

**Author's Note: **Thanks for the reviews!

Also thanks to Victania for helping me with the Ikuto parts.

---

**Children of the Sun**

02: _Know Your Enemy_

---

_**Saturday, 9.00 a.m.**_

_**City Square**_

The sun was out, glinting off the hoverboards lined up at the designated area. Amu noted that there weren't a lot of people over the age of twenty. Bright Star had aggressively marketed itself as an up-and-coming young peoples' brand, after all. Amu glanced at the hoverboards and realised with a jolt that while these people weren't old veterans, they were rather professional. These weren't kiddie boards aimed for little kids who wanted to go to school fast. These boards had been designed and customized specifically for power.

Amu gulped. She hadn't customized her Suu, or any other board she'd ever owned for that matter. She knew Kuukai's brothers were experts at customizing, but he'd told her that she shouldn't change anything to her board two days before the competition. She wouldn't be used to its new functions.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" A stout man in a shiny suit waddled over to them with a loudspeaker. "Boys and girls! We from Bright Star Enterprises would like to present the first e-_ver_ Hoverboard Race organized by our _prestiguous_ company! As you can see, these fresh young faces are more than ready to take up the challenge. Three of our finest boards are at stake..."

_Not me!_ Amu dithered, and then caught sight of something that made her stomach lurch.

Hoshina Utau.

Utau was a senior at Seiyo Academy. She took Hoverboarding as well, and when you looked below her feminine grace and love for frills and ruffles of the lolita genre, you could see a competitive, headstrong girl with nerves of steel. She'd beaten all the races at school and had won her boards in international competitons. The one she was riding now was the Il Diabla, a Spanish-made black and purple stunt board with two miniature devil wings sticking out of the sides. It wasn't just decorative. Those wings probably had magnetic plates to help her balance in stunts.

Like Amu, Utau had examined the rules. But unlike Amu, Utau knew what kind of boards people would favour in such a contest. While the Il could hold its own end, she needed more than blind speed to win. And she saw that extra marks were awarded to stunts. The more complicated and elaborate, the higher the extra marks.

_Boom!_

The race was on.

---

_**Saturday, 9.25 a.m.**_

_**Test Lab no. 590, Easter Corp.**_

Ikuto was crouched on his windowsill, staring at the view before him. The sun streamed in, glinting off the solarplates of buildings and reflecting off the sidewalk. It shone on the heads of people walking to the stores, and people flying to places, and the trees. There weren't many trees in the city now. Artificial ones were attached to major buildings, designed to absorb carbon dioxide and turn it into energy to fuel the machines, and release oxygen. It was, all in all, beautiful.

But he'd wanted more, now. The girl had been an initiative; a keystone, a catalyst. He'd had a taste and he was addicted.

Suddenly Ikuto heard something. His door clicked open as a worker shoved her entrance card inside. The tray she carried was laden with food, a white ceramic bowl with some gray muck in it that_ could _have been soup, and four pieces of limp toast. At about the same moment, Ikuto had a brainwave when he saw what was going on behind her...

"There's a spider behind you," he said in his usual monotone.

The worker, having been horribly traumatised as a child because of her brother dangling a dead giant spider in front of her face, was deathly afraid of all arachnids. She'd once stood on a chair in a meeting and squawked for someone to squash a tiny spider that had crawled on her file. So when she turned around and saw the creature staring her with all its beady little eyes, she screamed.

"YAAAAAAAHHH!"

Dropping the tray, she ran off in search of a newspaper and a poor lab assistant. The tray fell to the floor, the bowl spilled and the ceramic cracked, and the bread lay there uselessly. Ikuto opened the door wider and stepped outside.

It was a very weird feeling, being outside... _unauthorized._

Ikuto's brain displayed a floor map of the building. There was a fire escape towards the side. He could get there, if he was fast, and he was. Ikuto had the designers to thank for that. They thought that enhancing his senses would make the idea of cybernetic humans more appealing to the masses. He ran to the door and down the stairs, two at a time, and finally he reached the door. It slid open at his touch. He realised there must have been something akin to a entrance card in his fingertips.

And then it hit him. He was _out._

Ikuto began to walk, a plan of the city forming in his mind. People barely noticed him as he made his way to the city square slowly. There was so much to see. It was incredible, all the colour and the variety and... and _everything._ He was like a child. A child who had just learned to see. Ikuto marveled at the fragility, at the strength, at the beauty, at the ugliness, and at the sheer feeling of being free, and alive.

---

_**Saturday, 9.40 a.m.**_

_**City Square**_

Amu had just spent the last few minutes dodging obstacles and trying to finish as fast as possible.

The first obstacle had been easy, you just had to slalom around a few levitating rocks, which she did practically every day. Then there were motion-sensing plates that blocked your path. She'd tried to go as high as possible, leaving a gaping hole, which Utau had taken advantage of. And then there was a task in which you had to perform a stunt before you could pass through. But somehow, _somehow,_ she pulled through. And she was almost there.

The finishing line was marked by a red line strung between two lampposts, and it was getting nearer and nearer.

Amu was there, she could almost feel it, she could nearly taste it--

--and then her Suu gave a lurch that nearly threw her off balance.

"Oh no!" cried the announcer in a false sympathetic tone. "It's one thing that all Bright Star employees fear. System overheat!"

_System overheat?!_

Of course. She must have been pushing it too hard, just like she did with the Miki Spade.

The Suu gave another lurch, and suddenly she was plummeting towards the ground. She could hear people screaming and shouting, and she closed her eyes, and started hoping that Tadase was here.

And suddenly she was aware of landing in someone's arms, and she was aware of her heart beating very fast (_tha-thump, tha-thump_), and the next thing she knew was that the Suu was about to crash on top of her.

---

**Author's Note: **Had to get this done so Victania and I have something to talk about tomorrow...

BTW does anyone have any acting tips and/or tips on how to make someone look like a cat person on really low budget?


	3. Greetings

**Author's Note: **Moar thanks to Victania, who has just published something (_Entangled Destinies_) and has asked me to promote it. Well, it's a fantasy about time travel and angels and stuff, so if you like that kind of thing go read it. Okay, promotion done. On with my story!

Also I am currently thinking about writing a fanfic set in the 1920s. Not sure if that's a good idea, though, since I am lazy to do research. I'll probably end up changing it to a Victorian era fanfic, because I know _way _too much about that era.

This chapter contains some Ikutau; they're unrelated in this fanfic.

---

**Children of the Sun**

03. Greetings

---

_**Saturday, 9.41 a.m.**_

_**City Square**_

Two seconds before the board hit her face, someone caught it and pushed it into her arms. Amu glanced up at her saviour, gripping the Suu with white-knuckled fists. He was blank-faced and blue-haired, and he would have melted any girl he saw--if only he smiled. Amu grew aware of the crowd muttering around her, and that the other surfers were starting to touch down. She then grew aware of the fact that she'd just lost. _Lost._ And her Suu was busted to boot.

Amu looked up at the boy again, and his cold eyes fixed themselves on her. "Put me down, please..."

He dropped her on the ground without any ceremony.

"Ow." She groaned, expecting him to help her up or something, but he just stood there looking at her. In the end Amu hauled herself up.

"Hinamori!"

She saw Kuukai push himself through the crowd, which had begun to dissipate after they realised there was no more drama to be had. His happiness seemed to fill up a part of her, numbing the pain of losing... and the pain of being dropped onto a pavement. The boy's eyes swiveled mechanically towards her brown-haired friend. "Sorry I couldn't come earlier, my brother insisted I fix something... oh. What happened?" Kuukai looked at her with curiosity and sympathy combined.

"I lost." She replied. "The Suu overheated..."

"You say it like it's the end of the world. Just hand the Suu over to me, I'll get my dad to fix 'er up!"

"Yeah, but it takes _days, _and--" Amu remembered the last time she'd crashed the Miki Spade. It was a fitful series of hitching onto someone's board, taking faulty aerobuses and (she shuddered) going to school in her father's beat-up hovercar, nicknamed the _Old Faithful,_ a small rusty thing that creaked and groaned embarassingly. "I don't know..."

"You'll live." Kuukai laughed, running one hand through his hair. "Hey. Who's this guy?"

"Oh. I hit him, and he..." Amu stopped abruptly as she noticed the look on Kuukai's face, a mixture of horror (false) and hilarity (true). She reddened as she realised the double entrendre. "I just fell on top of him and..." Kuukai's eyebrows threatened to recede into his fringe. "Okay, fine, I crashed and he caught me," Amu finally said slowly, making sure there was no lewd joke behind her sentence this time.

"I know. I'm just screwing with you." Kuukai turned to the boy and looked him squarely in the eye. "So, what's your name, buddy?"

"Tsukiyomi Ikuto." He said it as if he'd been forced to memorize it, blank and without inflection.

"Haven't seen you around. You new around here?"

For the first time in his life, Ikuto did not know how to reply. He thought for a moment. Calculated the possibilities. Thought some more.

Then he finally said, "Yes."

"Do you want us to show you around?" Amu asked, before Kuukai could say anything.

Ikuto looked at her.

"I will accept your offer."

---

_**Saturday, 10.00 a.m.**_

_**Easter Corporation **_

Hoshina Utau sat in her room, opening the box covering her new Dia Navigator. Utau's room was posh, a dark red room with black carpeting and high-arched windows obscured partially by crimson curtains. Gothic-themed USB ports were scattered around the room, housing several textbooks, reference books, music books and an overpopulation of _shoujo_ manga. The blonde's room was located at the very top of Easter Corporation. Her father was none other than Kazuomi Hoshina, the director of the entire corporation, and Utau had been repeatedly told that she would inherit all this one day.

She didn't care that much. Utau and her father spoke to each other at precisely 8 pm every day, a ten-minute conversation before they went for dinner:

"How was school?"

"Nothing much."

"How are your grades?"

"Fine."

"Excellent." He took two paces, paused, turned to her. "You know that Easter will be yours someday."

"Yes, father."

"You are prepared for it."

"I always have been."

She'd never known her father, truly. Utau had been raised in Easter Corp by lab assistants and patented robot maids, and she became the darling of the stiff scientists, who took time off to buy her things they thought she'd appreciate. Chocolates. Candies. Dolls. She was a spoiled little girl, mostly spoiled because the scientists thought it was saddening that her father worked so much, he barely had time to spend with her. The excitable junior lab assistants gossiped about her being nothing more than a heir to the Hoshina legacy. Once her presence was confirmed, Kazuomi left her alone. _Too_ alone.

It had been a huge concession that Kazuomi let her go to Seiyo Academy. Maybe it was because she adored school-life manga, and wished she had a life like that. It hadn't gone well, not like she'd percieved school to be. She was very cool, yes, but _too _cool, almost on the brink of being an ice queen. People left her alone most of the time.

Some time ago she'd come across a vintage novel written by a _Stephenie Meyer._ It was intriguing, very shoujo-like, and she'd been fascinated by the novel for some time, though an existance without hoverboards, maidbots, and the like she could not begin to even imagine. There was something in it, about _imprinting_, and she was convinced that she'd imprinted on Tsukiyomi Ikuto. The little boy at the heart of Project Sunshine. Though he wasn't a little boy any more.

She was irrevocably in love with him; something about his aloof, cold personality drew her in like a moth to a flame. He was the gravity holding her to the earth. The fact that she couldn't give him too much emotion was a dangerous factor that sparked their relationship, like being in a forbidden romance, but worse, as she never knew how much was too much. A sharp-tongued engineer's daughter she'd once befriended had commented that it was nought more than an odd kink. A fetish.

Of course it wasn't. It was more than that. It was _love_. She'd make him love her someday.

Utau left her room. She was going to look for her darling Ikuto-kun.

---

_**Saturday, 10. 30 a.m.**_

_**Avalon District**_

Avalon District was a brightly coloured venue, home to the beautiful and the bizzare, the lines between both of them blurring with each moment. Giant sculptures of creatures that looked like phoenixes at one glance and dragons at another prowled the streets. Street performers with gaily coloured costumes and faces did handstands and mime acts and juggled things. Wrinkled, hooded old ladies with hands like that of the finest geisha offered to tell your fortune by looking at the shape of your lips. Young people walked the streets hand in hand, and it was impossible to tell their genders.

Ikuto looked somewhat intimidated.

"Hey! Your ice cream's melting!"

Kuukai looked expectantly at him, having demolished two of his own in a few minutes. Amu had gone to have her fortune told--something that was stupid anyway, Kuukai thought, as the old ladies were probably buttering her up for a quick buck or twenty.

Ikuto looked at his rapidly dissolving ice cream and licked it experimentally. "It's sweet," he said, as if he was surprised by it.

"Well, duh. It's strawberry. What, you've never had an ice cream before?"

Ikuto looked at Kuukai very seriously and then shook his head.

It was rather amusing to watch Kuukai's lower jaw unhinge and drop open, his eyes widened in utter shock. "You poor deprived child. This is a problem! A catastrophe of Epic Proportions! _How could you NOT taste an ice cream in your life?!_"

Before Ikuto could answer that question, he was saved by Amu, who returned with a lighter pocket and a beaming face. Suddenly her face creased with confusion. "Ikuto, what's that on your neck?"

His hand flew to the base of his neck, where a small LED light had been implanted beneath the skin. Kuukai scurried over and peered at it. Around the LED, under his translucent, pale skin, the two of them could faintly make out a network of intricate technology. "You're..." Amu started to say. "You're some kind of robot...?"

"I have to go." Pushing the two of them aside like a pair of saloon bar doors, Ikuto walked away for a while, before breaking into a run. He'd forgotten about the Easter homing beacon. Someone must have activated it when they noticed he wasn't there. It had never been used before, to the best of his knowledge, as he'd never had cause to leave Easter Corporation.

"Wait!" Amu shouted, taking a few steps as if to chase after him.

"Yeah, you forgot the ice cream!" Kuukai added.

Amu stared at him.

"_What?"_

---

**Author's Notes: **Do bear with me, I find this chapter suckish. I'm currently reading a bunch of Twilight sporkings (I hate that series!) and that's a bit of a direct influence.

I had trouble writing Amu. Maybe if she really did have a cool and spicy personality, FOR REAL KTHX, I'd find it easier to write her. Maybe it's just me and my passion for writing antiheroes, but Amu's 'real' personality struck me as bland. Generic. So if she sounds and acts like Bella Sue Swan here, I'm sorry, that's how I roll. Kuukai was fun though. As for Utau, she'll be a clingy jealous girl for now, because honestly that's how she comes across to me, and it was awesome to write.

Next chapter focuses on Easter Corporation's other tenants, compromising of Nagihiko/Nadeshiko Fujisaki, Lulu De Morcef, Yaya Yuiki and Kairi Sanjo. It will be an awesomely weird time.

Review, please...


	4. Erised

**Author's Note: **For The Great Victorian Era Project, the idea will be... given for free. Go ahead. Spin something out of it and expect me to analyse your history. Just kidding! To Vampire Knight readers, I'll be writing a mental asylum AU someday. Because it's fun, dammit. Also in this chapter we are finally getting on track and there will be bucketloads of world-building here.

So sit back and refrain from criticising my wanton usage of science. I learn science from Cracked(.)com, to be precise. Also may be a little OOC because I don't watch the anime (it's too freakin' long!)

Also thanks to the Fantasy Place Name Generator and Google for, well, my impromptu 'research'. Also--yet again--to Victania. Wouldn't update as fast without her input.

---

**Children of the Sun**

04. Erised

---

_**Tuesday, 3.45 p.m.**_

_**Test Lab No. 590, Easter Corporation**_

Once a week, Ikuto went for Evaluation. This, as one of the doctors explained, was very important towards their research, because they had to check for any mistakes or complications. So far Ikuto had one of the cleanest records, having only 120 problems in his system. During Evaulation, he would have to be checked alongside several of Easter's other creations. Like him, they were all obtained in accidents or they were young orphans. Controversy had sparked a few times, but were quickly quelled. It was a brave new era, after all! It was all for the greater good.

It was lucky that the media never knew about the many orphans from various obscure places and offplanet mining colonies, who had died in Easter's experimentations, or controversy _would_ have been justified.

Ikuto's room was no longer the stark white cocoon he'd resided in for so long. It was now a white cage with one--_one_--tempting glimpse of the outside. After his escape, his room was now fortified with defences designed not to keep someone out, but to keep someone in. The walls were hardened, complicated passwords memorized by the workers, and the window fitted so that he'd be electrified if he so much as touched the panes. Finally, tough-looking robot guards were positioned in front of his door.

Dr Nikaidou Yuu was one of those assigned to him. He'd been working here ten years, and his father before him. Nikaidou, like most of Easter's workers, lived and worked in Easter Corp since he was born. Easter, knowing that Hyperia's landspace was limited, had constructed a spiderweb of underground rooms for their employees. This way, it was easier for them to contact scientists in charge when their experiments went wrong during the night, and solved all their housing problems. Employees met and married within Easter Corp, many of them--like Nikaidou--growing up inside the monolith.

He whistled a jaunty tune as he went, spinning on his heels and striking a pose in front of Ikuto's door, before straightening himself up and whispering the password. The guards stepped aside, and Nikaidou nodded as they passed without a creak in their joints. The door slid open, and Nikaidou stepped inside. "Afternoon, Ikuto! Ready for Evaluation?" He recieved no reply, only a sullen nod. Ikuto had grown resentful after the modifications had been made, and while some might say it was a sign he'd shaped a personality, it was annoying.

"Well, being moody won't help matters, Mr Black Cat," He'd called him that ever since Ikuto was a child, because he'd been strangely drawn to a book entitled _The Black Cat._ "Come on..."

Ikuto rose mechanically, but started when Nikaidou pulled out a pair of what looked like two circles of light attached by a string, also of light. His eyes flashed. Lasercuffs, that's what they were called. Only the most unruly of Easter's members had to wear lasercuffs while going outside. All his life, Ikuto never had to wear them. As Nikaidou moved forward to clip one end to his wrist, Ikuto backed away. It was instinctive, a primal defence: back away from what you're wary of.

"Mr Black Cat..."

"No." He muttered, a hint of a snarl in his voice. "I won't wear that thing."

"We need to take precautions, Tsukiyomi Ikuto." Nikaidou's voice grew cold and his eyes lost their playful shine.

"No. I won't. I won't!" Ikuto's hands felt a chair, a solid, wooden chair in his room. "I won't!"

He flung the chair across the room, nearly missing Nikaidou by a hair. The next thing he knew was that a red alarm was buzzing over and over, and people in black uniforms ran in, and they seized him roughly and jabbed a sedative into his veins. "I won't." He added weakly, before the sedative washed over him and everything went pitch black.

---

_**Tuesday, 5.06 p.m.**_

_**Test Lab No. 590, Easter Corporation**_

_"Ikuto..."_

_He looks up, and he sees a woman with her arms wide open. She has blonde hair, and her face is obscured by her dainty hat. Suddenly, a man comes into the picture, black-haired and fair-skinned, almost Ikuto's carbon copy. He puts his arm around the woman, and they both go to him, and he looks at them, and something comes into his mind, and it is so terrible and beautiful that it cannot be true. And yet it is._

_"Mummy?" He says. He's never said those words to anyone before. "Daddy?"_

_"Son," says the man, and the woman smiles and hugs him. _

_"We must go now, Souko." The man says suddenly, and something in Ikuto's heart twists over, and he reaches out with one hand. His eyes fill with tears, and his heart feels like it could burst from sheer wanting. _

_"Can't we wait a moment, Aruto?" She replies, brushing the tears out of his eyes. "It's our little boy..."_

_Silence._

_"We have to go." says Aruto, and Souko finally leaves him alone, taking her husband's hand and walking into the distance. His heart fills with a terrible ache, and he tries to run after them, but he can't, and he stands there, screaming "Mummy! Daddy! Don't go!" He screams it, shouts it, yells it, over and over again, and he falls on the floor, and he cries..._

_"Come back!" He finally says, and then everything fades. Obtuse. Into the darkness..._

---

_**Tuesday, 6.30 p.m.**_

_**Evaluation Room, Easter Corporation**_

Nagihiko shifted into Nadeshiko without any difficulty, feeling his body turn and twist into a daintier, female version of himself. She had no memory of her former life, though a quick glance at her files and records would tell you that she had been one of the few survivors of a mutant plague on the mining village on Dellmarch, one of the many worldlets of the Asteroid Belt. The plague had spread, developing to only prey on the adults, leaving the children behind.

Nade was one of them.

She had been injected with the hermaphrodic genes from a specimen of _Crepidula fornicata_, the slipper-shell limpet. This would revolutionize gender change operations forever. At the signal, she shifted back into Nagi, and looked expectantly up at the scientists in charge. They nodded, and one of them led him outside. Nagi had worn unisex robes for all his life, and seemed to view his abilities as normal.

Nagi sat in the waiting room, looking for Ikuto. The blue-haired boy was usually there.

He wasn't.

Had something happened to him?

---

_**Wednesday, 9.00 a.m.**_

_**Easter Corporation**_

"Alright students!" The teacher, a lady with an opera veteran's figure named Nobuko Saeki, clapped her hands together. "Our objective today is to learn about new developments in hoverboarding technology invented by Easter Corp. We will most certainly not make any detours..." She glanced at the boys sniggering in the back as they discussed the new female slave-droids, also invented by Easter Corp. "Stick together, everyone!"

As Nobuko bustled through, following the guide, Amu quickly got bored by the droning tone of the guide, broken occasionally by Nobuko's comments, usually promotion for her blog _Housewives' Knowledge. _She made no secret that most of their mothers swore by her, and made it a point to remind them whenever she'd updated. Unfortunately, blogging was not a money-spinning job, so she had resorted to teaching at Seiyo.

"I know all this," Amu hissed to Kuukai, pointing to a giant machine pounding pieces of recycled steel into a hoverboard. "It's just like in the books."

"Duh," Kuukai whispered back. "The Markovs, the people who invented hoverboards, were the co-founders of Easter. It's how Easter got famous."

"I thought they were a science experiment group."

"Yeah, but they had to get financing from somewhere."

"Huh."

Suddenly Amu's eyes flew open. "Kuukai! Isn't that--"

Kuukai turned to see a scientist escorting Ikuto out of his room. "Hey, it's the kid from Sunday!"

Ikuto turned, too, and his blue eyes shone with a fire that hadn't appeared for days.

"Amu?"

---

**Author's Note: **YAAAAY.

I suck at writing fluffy romance so what Imma do is I CAP Twilight! Lol no that's a joke. Sorry.

HP fans should get the title. If you don't, read Philosopher's Stone again.


	5. Matters of the Heart

**Author's Note: **Loving the reviews, people. Loving them. Here's a tip. Whenever you feel down, go open your Traffic for your most popular story and look at it for a while. Look at what you have _accomplished_. Look at all those nationalities of people you've touched. Better than therapy. So I'd like to thank all of you guys for reading thus far.

I'm also aware that I'm using ideas, subconsciously, from the EXCELLENT series _Artemis Fowl_ by Eoin Colfer. The dude is genius. Also I once again thank Cracked for some really good articles about futuristic societies--buildings, tech and even laws.

---

**Children of the Sun**

05. Matters of the Heart

---

_**Tuesday, 9.02 a.m.**_

_**Easter Corporation**_

The scientist beside Ikuto was in a very bad mood. She was a tall, lanky woman with straight black hair, tanned skin from field work and a pair of halfmoon glasses over blue eyes, a trait from an European aunt, or so she was told, and she was one of the very few non-'homegrown' (a term used around colleagues to describe workers who had grown up in Easter Corp) scientists who had clawed her way up to supervisiing her own project: Operation Sunshine.

As she had to face aerotraffic and a volley of annoying salesbots that morning, not to mention her automatic decaf maker sudddenly malfunctioning, the poor scientist was in a terrible mood. This was made worse by the mounting pressure on her, with some superiors muttering something about 'that project, you know, Op Sunshine, and that little experiment gone walkies... we'd better groom more homegrowns, eh?' Also she'd just realised that a secretary's slip-up had led some high-profile Austrian scientists to think she was _male._ Of all the insults to top the superiors'...

"Ikuto!"

Amu beamed as she looked at Ikuto. He was alright. She'd been somewhat puzzled about the technology in his body, but she'd dismissed it as some sort of newfangled prosthetic. Kuukai had been distracted by one of his friends jabbing a finger at some of the female maidbots being assembled in another lane. Amu sighed inwardly. Boys. Ikuto looked at her, his face rearranged into a careful sort of emotionless state. Her golden eyes flickered towards the woman next to him. Her face seemed to radiate with a caged energy.

"Tsukiyomi, we're on a tight schedule..." The woman, identified by her electronic nametag as Dakaru Supaida (Every two seconds it would show as _kanji_, then English, and then back again), ground her teeth as she talked to him.

"Is _your _school on a trip, too?" Amu was perplexed. Suddenly something flashed in her mind: perhaps his prosthetics had malfunctioned, and he was seeking repairment? The yellow LED could have been some sort of danger warning. But why put it on the back of his neck, then?

Dakaru looked at Amu like she was a tiny bug she'd like to crush beneath her black boots.

"Miss, I'd like to tell you that Tsukiyomi Ikuto is a part of Easter Corporation, under the code name of Operation Sunshine," She replied coldly. "We are due to scheduling a press conference on Friday about him," She gestured towards Ikuto. "So it won't hurt if I tell you about our developments in artificial intelligence."

Amu's eyes widened. "Artificial intelligence? He's some kind of cyborg, then?"

"Yes," Ikuto replied, before Dakaru could say anything.

"In a way, miss." The black-haired woman added. "When will your tour finish?"

Amu thought back. Nobuko Saeki had said something about it... ah! Yes, she remembered now. "At noon." The pinkette replied confidently. She was not the type to be easily intimidated.

"Hmm. Since Ikuto seems to trust you--and it isn't easy to earn his trust, believe me--I'll show you what we're doing with Ikuto." Dakaru smiled, and Amu shuddered. The woman had the air of a predator around her when she smiled like that, like a vampire perhaps, or a werewolf that has cornered its prey. Still, it was exciting. It wasn't every day she got to do this.

---

_**Tuesday, 9.30 a.m.**_

_**Second Evaluations Lab, Easter Corporation**_

The doors of the second lab slid open silently and efficiently to reveal a keypad. The process you had to go through before entering was complicated, leaving Amu rather impressed, but also annoyed by how long it took. First, Dakaru keyed in Ikuto's vital statistics, a password and answered two key questions. The keypad rearranged itself to form a sort of scanner, and Dakaru placed her palm on it. After it approved of her, she stepped aside, letting a machine that looked like a cross between a laser pointer and a syringe on a handle run a red grid over the boy's body.

The scanner widened itself and displayed changes in Ikuto's body since the last evaluation.

Dakaru nodded and pressed the middle of the screen, making the keypad/scanner/thingy disappear into a slot in the side and the doors slide open.

Two robotic droids guided Ikuto towards them. They were crude, metallic frames with red LED lights for eyes, very detatched from the beautifully crafted humanoid robots she'd come to accept as a social norm. One of them ran a green-tinted X-ray scanner over his back, peeling away layers of cloth, skin, flesh and muscle to reveal a carefully constructed series of technological wonders. Amu watched with a sick fascination. His skeletal structure was made of some sort of powerful metal alloy.

"How is that..."

"Possible?" Dakaru let out a bitter laugh. "Well... years ago, a man named Lee Spievack discovered a formula that allows the regeneration of any injury. The Extracellular Matrix. It was a slow process at first, but we've managed to speed it up. A few interns refer to it as 'Wolverine Gear'," she added in a derisive tone, as if she didn't approve of the nickname. The robot changed some settings, revealing his nervous system. It was largely left intact, except for... _things..._ scuttling in them.

"Nanotechnology," Amu said, stepping closer warily to get a better look.

"Indeed. These help cell regeneration. Whenever there is a defect--say, a cold, or an injury..." At this point the second robot's forearm changed into a thin blade, and it sliced a small wound on his wrist. Amu gulped as the blood ran out of the would. As she stared, she saw the green X-ray shine over it. And then she gasped in wonder: nanobots scuttled towards the wound, closing it up and repairing the damage in seconds. Ikuto flexed his wrist and gave a smile. It looked somewhat forced.

"Ikuto is a technological marvel," Dakaru added. "Thanks to our breakthrough technology, he can jump, run, sing, draw, memorize, and calculate faster than the most talented athelete or child prodigy that ever walked this Earth." Amu gazed at him in wonder, before Dakaru's words continued. "But there is one flaw. It is why I brought you here, miss."

"Huh?"

"He has no emotion," Dakaru's eyes seemed to flash with sudden disappointment, but it vanished. "Not until recently. In previous...tests...emotion triggered by residual brain cells would cause his brain to overheat. But I think that with the right stimulus (you, in this case, miss) we could avert this problem altogether."

Ikuto and Amu looked at each other for a moment.

"You mean, you want me to help him? But I'm just a regular schoolgirl..."

"Sometimes we need regular things."

---

_**Tuesday, 8. 54 p.m.**_

_**Amu's House**_

AmuletDiamond78: Yeah... for srs Kuukai

Sky_Jack: i dun believe it!!!

AmuletDiamond78: T_T

Sky_Jack: sry... its jus so far fetched...

AmuletDiamond78: u mean Ikuto bein a robot or me going 2 help him?

Sky_Jack: both lol

AmuletDiamond78: ...

Sky_Jack: can i come?

AmuletDiamond78: i don't think so

Sky_Jack: :( :( :(

AmuletDiamond78: u kno

Sky_Jack: what???

AmuletDiamond78: mr nikaidou works at easter corp, being a teacher is a side job

Sky_Jack: :O

AmuletDiamond78: he says he'll consider quitting

Sky_Jack: Easter Corp??!!

AmuletDiamond78: no being a teacher

Sky_Jack: Aw... that sukz

Sky_Jack: gotta go, bros goin 2 race 2nite, i gotta be there

AmuletDiamond: bye then

_Sky_Jack appears to be offline. Messenges you send will be delivered when they sign in. __E-mail this contact instead_

---

_**Wednesday, 8.45 a.m.**_

_**Seiyo Academy Hoverboarding Practical Classes**_

Mr Nikaidou, as it turned out, was going to leave the next day. He'd spoiled his class--instead of Theory lessons, he took them out for Practical lessons, signed a lot of hoverboards, hugged some students, exchanged a lot of social networking addresses, and generally had a heart-wrenching whale of a time.

The Practical classes were sometimes arranged so that seniors and juniors shared the same area, the explanation being that space was limited, the motive being that students benefitted from rivalry. As it happened, Amu shared classes with Utau.

Utau was talking to another girl, a haughty sort of girl named Lulu De Morcerf. They moved to another area, and Utau dropped something of hers as she went.

"Utau!" Amu called after her, picking up the object and putting it in her pocket as she went. "You dropped..."

"_Oh_." Lulu turned to look at her, then Utau. "That's the brat you were talking about?"

Amu had gathered that Utau and Lulu were both residents of Easter Company, from what Ikuto and Dakaru had told her of. Utau was the daughter of the CEO, while Lulu was the daughter of a hypnotism researcher. Amu recalled Lulu performing some of her tricks on juniors, though she never told anyone exactly how she could tell them to douse themselves with rancid-smelling water from an abandoned bucket.

"Yes," Utau replied, venom dripping from her tone of voice. "Listen up, _princess_. I know that Dakaru's let you participate in her little experiments, but let me tell you that _I_ am Ikuto's girlfriend. Now and forever."

Amu's face registered confusion.

Then she remembered what she was here for.

"Wait, you--"

"What's that?" Lulu stared at Amu and pointed to her coat pocket. "It looks like your..."

Utau screeched. She was livid. "My picture of Ikuto-kun! You stole it, you _bitch_!"

She grabbed the little portrait and stomped off, with Lulu casually strolling after her and giving Amu a sneer as she went. Amu shook her head. Matters of the heart were so complicated.

---

**Author's Note: **I don't know if Utau's any OOC. But it was fun to write her as this psychotic little bitch. Also I sealed a plot hole as I went.

Finally I thought I'd like to run a little poll here. It keeps us all hooked!

Question A: Would you like to see Amu and Ikuto...

1. Go out to the park

2. Go to a THEME park

3. Stay in Easter Corp.

Question B: Should Tadase appear?

1. HELL NO

2. Yes! Romantic competition!

3. HELL NO, but I want Nagi to come back

Review and tell me what you want to see, eg 'For A I vote for (insert number) and for B I vote for (number)!' If you want you can add 'Because...' and add your reason. It all depends on how many votes I get, so if you want your favourite option to win, get all your Shugo Chara-loving friends to Read and Review. It's a marketing gimmick, I know, but very successful too.

It all depends on _you. _So press the button!


	6. Butterflies

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the late update. I was lacking inspiration, and feeling like a fish out of water when I confronted _Children of the Sun_. I'd been immersed in action-adventure for so long I simply did NOT want to write romance. Can someone please recomend me a fanfic, or a manga or something, that is well-written and does _not _involve 'girl meets two boys, must decide!!1!', and if manga/anime less than 20 chapters/episodes. Kthx.

The results are in, and it turns out most of you want the theme park (8 votes) and... Tadase WILL come back! (I think someone's going 'NOOOO!') Also btw: Rimahiko? Really? Look, one's a hermaphrodite and the other one's a girl. Hold on--I have it. A plot bunny! Whoo! But on with the show--

---

**Children of the Sun**

06. Butterflies

---

_**Wednesday, 10. 00 a.m.**_

_**Seiyo Academy Cafeteria**_

After much dillydallying and mutterings, meetings and nodding, the school's teachers finally made their decision about the school's most anticipated event: Prom Night. Prom Night was to Seiyo Academy as coming-of-age balls were to the Victorian Londoners: a chance for young people to showcase themselves to society in one night of dancing and frilly gowns. Of course, the Victorians didn't have to worry about choosing partners. Seiyo Academy now faced this problem.

"This Friday," Amu groaned. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Kuukai shrugged. "You were so wrapped up in your work and everything..."

Amu's year and above were allowed to attend Prom Night unattended, and juniors could come with a chaperone. Amu cringed at the memory last year, when she'd asked Kuukai to share his chaperone with her, which turned out to be his brothers. Suffice to say that instead of ending at ten, Prom Night finished at eight-thirty. Now that she thought about it, all her Prom Nights had been with some desperate boy who was willing to take the class _pet _to Prom if it came to that. Except for last year, when all the desperates had been taken, and she took Kuukai.

It looked like she'd have to take Kuukai again this year, even if she wanted more than anything (except maybe a camosuit, a suit based on the chameleon's ability to change based on its surroundings, and did the same for humans--it _would_ come in handy) to take Tadase Hotori.

_...All you gotta do is walk away and pass me by_

_Don't acknowledge my smile when I try to say hello to you, yeah..._

As if she'd summoned him, Tadase came into the cafeteria--no, _glided_ into the cafeteria--followed by a girl. Amu frowned as she saw the giggling face of Saaya Yamabuki, like an ogre cornering an enchanted prince. He walked in front of their table, and Amu suddenly glanced down and focused on her watery salad instead, her face turning the colour of a beetroot. She looked up to see her walk away and Tadase smiling at her. Then he sat in front of her.

Kuukai coughed. "Excuse me, but I just remembered the coach wanted to talk to me about something." He got up and left abruptly. Tadase looked at Amu.

_...And all you gotta do is not answer my calls, when..._

"You're Hinamori Amu, right?"

_...I'm trying to get through..._

"Yes." A part of her was squealing; another part of her was kicking herself for being so shy. "Er--how did you know?"

He laughed. Amu's mind scrabbled to find poetical phrases to describe his laugh. "I don't think I'd forget the girl who wanted to marry me."

_...To keep me wondering why, when all I can do is sigh_

_I just wanna touch you..._

They were six, at the playground, and Amu and a group of neighbourhood children had, like most children, followed a long-running period soap opera set in the late 1920s. They didn't quite understand what was happening, but there had been a wedding, and they decided to play it. Tadase was new, so they let him be the groom, and Amu had jumped up and volunteered to be his bride. The memory leapt from the back of her mind, and Amu gasped.

Then she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. No wonder. No wonder on the day she thought she'd first seen Tadase, she found him familiar.

And then: _Oh God._

"We were kids..."

_...I just wanna touch and kiss..._

""Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?"" Tadase smiled again, gently this time.

_...And I wish that I could be with you tonight..._

"What?"

"Oh. It's a quote, from an old writer. William Shakespeare."

Silence. On Amu's end, teenage confusion and awkwardness. On Tadase's end, seemingly stillness and calmness.

_...Oh, you give me butterflies inside, inside and I..._

"I haven't got a date for the dance, you know."

She knew what he meant. That one casual sentence held the meaning 'I'm available. Just give the word, I'll go with you.'

"Why don't you meet me at the theme park tonight?" Tadase's smile stretched wider. "Say... eight?"

Amu was finding it hard to reply. It was very much a scene from a cheap shojo manga-based movie, complete with its own mushy soundtrack.

Of course, it turned out to be Saaya Yamabuki's portable radio, but Amu was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't really mind.

---

_**Wednesday, 6. 30 p.m.**_

_**Amu's House**_

Amu had decided to bring Ikuto to the theme park. That way she could teach Ikuto, like she'd promised, and give Tadase an answer. Amu had wondered what to wear, eventually dragging her closest female friend into it. Rima Mashiro's blonde curls framed her face, and she brushed away one ringlet as she waited for her to change. Amu felt a slight pang of jealousy. Even on her cheap webcam, Rima was beautiful, in an angelic, Renaissance painting sort of way.

"How about this one?"

Rima examined her for a while before shaking her head. "No. Guys will just think you're trying too hard."

Amu groaned.

"Relax." The webcam shifted as Rima leaned to one side to get her drink.

"I _know_, but--"

"Honestly, Amu. I don't know what you see in him. He's gay."

"He is not."

"He wears eyeliner."

"That doesn't make someone gay. How about this?"

"Okay. That looks nice on you." She took a sip of her iced tea. "Tadase uses foundation."

"No way."

"Yes he does. He dropped it once. I saw."

"Could be his mom's."

"Why would his mom put her makeup in his bag?"

"...It's just rumours, Rima."

Her mom asked her why on earth would she get dressed up to go to a theme park. Amu shrugged and said she wanted to look nice.

"Is it because of the boy you're supposed to look after?" Her mother tried to add a knowing undertone to her voice.

"No!" Amu was surprised. Ikuto was just her friend. Though as she said it, she wondered what it was like to kiss a cyborg. She imagined it would be cold, or even metallic, but you never know.

---

_**Wednesday, 7.45 p.m.**_

_**Land of Wonders Theme Park**_

It was as though they'd stepped into the past. Land of Wonders threw them back almost ninety years ago, to an old-fashioned park with all sorts of rides. To Ikuto, the light from all those bulbs and neon was almost blinding. But once you got over that, the theme park was beautiful. They'd been on the carousel, the ferris wheel, run around trying to win plush toys and keychains, and generally had fun. Amu bought candy floss, and Ikuto was--yet again--stunned by how sweet this was compared to the food he got at Easter.

_Brzzk! _Coloured lights danced behind his eyes. The world swayed.

"Here you are, Ikuto." She gives it to him, a smiling woman. She is his mother, Souko. He reaches out and takes the candyfloss, licks it, and she laughs. It is a beautiful day for a family cruise, and the sun is shining. Everyone is in a good mood--

He goes inside to play for a while, and then he falls asleep for but a mere second, and when he wakes up from a sweet dream he sees that the sky is an angry gray colour, and the ship is fighting the waves. A rock has hit the ship, and it is sinking, and suddenly there is water everywhere, he screams, and he screams, and the water starts turning _red_--

_red--_there's _red_ everywhere--it hurts--it hurts _so bad_--

His head hits a rock, and then it's all _red_, _red _everywhere, _red_ like paint at playgroup, _red_, _red, red--_

_The word starts losing its meaning--_

Ikuto suddenly snapped back to the present. Amu looked at him in concern. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, suddenly exhausted. "What happened?"

"You dropped your candyfloss and started going 'red, red' and 'it hurts'." Amu glanced at the candyfloss in dismay, and back at the blue-haired boy. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes. Yes I am. It's nothing, I'll have it looked at afterwards." Ikuto got up. The world nearly flipped upside down and he clung to the closest thing he had. Amu blushed, and began to walk forwards, when lo and behold: Tadase Hotori arrived.

"Amu," He smiled, then his brow furrowed. "Who is this?"

"A friend," She said hurriedly. "He isn't feeling well. I'm going to send him home."

He noticeably relaxed.

"Are you asking me t-to Prom?" Amu blurted out. "I mean, it was what you were going to say, right, only it was implied and stuff and..."

"I am," Tadase replied. "Before you ask me why (I can see the look on your face), well," He looked somewhat uncomfortable, and suddenly it was as though a mask had come off. "I don't know. I've been interested in you. It's just something about you, I suppose. You have something, Amu, that other girls just don't. I don't know. Really. It's just a weird crush, I guess..."

Ikuto stirred, and Amu wished fervently the scarlet blossoms on her cheeks would fade. A lesson about taunting would be scheduled far, far away, when they'd forgotten about this. Then again, could computer systems forget? Oh man.

"Sometimes when you have a crush on someone," His voice was soft, but laced with venom. A challenge. "You end up getting, well, crushed."

"Perhaps it isn't me who will get crushed," Tadase returned. Then he faced Amu. "So... what do you make of it?"

She thought for a while.

"Yes."

As they left, Amu could have sworn she heard Tadase give a low chuckle and add, "'Don't push your relationship with a person too hard, if it's meant to be, then it will happen.'"

---

**Author's Note: **Credit must be given where due. So the song I used was by Michael Jackson, it's a beautiful song called _Butterflies._ And the last bit, well, Ikuto was quoting--oh, you wouldn't expect it but--Gwen from _Ben 10_. Yeah, I watch and love that show.

Tadase is probably OOC. Haha. I don't care. This Tadase is fun to write. Then again, none of you lot care anyway. So let's all laugh together.

...no srs u gaiz, I like Tadase. What is with him, anyway? And why do you think he's gay? He's into Amu, right? Last I checked Amu's a girl.

So yeah--next chapter is going to be a Development of Relationships, and it will be set to music, so send in a song you think would fit this couple. Can be any language you like, English, Japanese, heck I'd accept some far-flung regional dialect song your grandmama hums from time to time, as long as it's on the internet and would fit the next chapter's theme, which is upbeat and happy.


	7. Maiden's Hand

**Author's Note:** The reason this chapter took so long to write was because I thought, hey, let's do a romantic montage. It turns out I got very unsatisfied with what came out. I'm not a romance person, no ma'am, and I decided to just skip it.

If anyone wants to write said romantic montage please do so. Please.

Enjoy.

---

**Children of the Sun**

07. Maiden's Hand

---

_**Thursday, 10. 11 p.m.**_

_**CEO Office, Kurosu Industries**_

Hotori Tsukasa was a polarising name. Depending on who you asked; some would curse and snarl his name and others would proudly declare it. After all, Kurosu Industries was bent on making 'green' technology. It was a rising star in the technology field, and Easter's main competitor.

But Tsukasa had another motive: he was a man who knew about Easter's sometimes inhumane experimentation. He'd used shady middlemen to find and buy back ill or deformed orphans, those who'd gone wrong" in experimentation, and he would try to heal them, or at least send them off in a humane way. Rumours said that Easter put them in a gas chamber and filled it with carbon monoxide, or smother them with a blanket in their sleep. The truth... well. Some things are meant to be a secret; this was one of them.

Tadase Hotori had been one of Easter's experiments for skin disease, and he was one of Tsukasa's first successful rescues. Back then, he looked like an extra from a zombie flick, his skin blistered, scarred and dotted with strange lumps and growths. He'd had skin-grafting operations, but every night he still had to apply several creams and balms to himself to keep from devolving, as well as having to cover up the irregularities in skin colour with a good coat of makeup.

"So it's arranged, I presume." Tsukasa smiled fondly.

"Yes," Tadase replied. "But what makes you think Tsukiyomi will be there?"

"From what you say," Tsukasa responded. "He's besotted with her. He'll be there, don't worry."

"I suppose. And what about Hinamori?"

"Hinamori," Tsukasa selected a few options and scrawled something with a stylus pen on the computer screen in front of him, all the while nodding absently. "Ah, Hinamori. That was a good piece of acting there, Tadase."

Tadase scowled. "I forgot to disable the cam..."

"Hm. I thought we'd have to administer hypnosis on her, but she's infatuated with you. Or at least the you she knows." Tsukasa looked up and sighed. "Alright, now I'll be serious. It's best if she doesn't know anything. Once we're finished with Tsukiyomi, we'll send him offplanet. I know a couple on Tuthmosis who would accept him as their own. If Hinamori sees you, jab her with a wipedart." He ran two more programs on his computer. "Well, run along now. I have arrangements to be made."

---

_**Thursday, 12.00 p.m.**_

_**Amu's House**_

AmuletDiamond78: How's this?

BalaBalanceFan: It's fine, I suppose.

_Sky_Jack has just signed in_

Sky_Jack: MY EYEZ!! haha jk

BalaBalanceFan: T__T

AmuletDiamond78: T_______T

Sky_Jack: sigh

Sky_Jack: hate prom

AmuletDiamond78: hey at least you men don't need to worry bout dresses

BalaBalanceFan: It's their loss, lack of variety

AmuletDiamond78: lol

Sky_Jack: who're you going with? i'm taking rima ;)

AmuletDiamond78: :0

Sky_Jack: I HAZ NO CHOICE D8

BalaBalanceFan: Shut up.

---

_**Friday, 9.45 pm**_

_**Seiyo Academy**_

"Has anyone seen Tadase?"

The blond had disappeared a while ago, saying he needed to go to the bathroom.

"No," Rima shrugged. "Kuukai's disappeared too. I guess I'll have to look for him."

As the blonde left, she suddenly saw him running towards the staircase leading to the school's historical stargazing observatory. Amu's eyes narrowed, and she followed him, cursing under her breath as she nearly tripped on the hem of her black gown. Annoyed, Amu grabbed one end in her fist and tried to rip it off, but failed.

Amu stared at the stairs in horror before spotting someone's hoverboard stowed next to it, a winter-themed Snowflake Snoppe. She silently apologised to its owner and activated it, zooming up the stairs. It quickly became known to her that the Snoppe was a board designed for extreme speed and power.

"Whoa whoa whoooooaaaah!"

-

Tadase, meanwhile, was cornering Ikuto, who had landed on the observatory with a stolen Black Thief Yoru, an aptly named sleek and silent blue-black board. Both faced each other, both dressed to kill in matching tuxedoes--and indeed, if you were watching, they really did look like they were about to kill.

"Hold still, and we can do this the easy way." Tadase announced.

"You really wouldn't think I'd actually do that, would you?" Ikuto returned.

"Of course not," Tadase nonchalantly replied.

He quickly moved to pin Ikuto against the wall of the observatory, but the young cyborg sensed that in time and stepped out of his way. Tadase lost his footing for a moment, spinning around with the grace of a ballerina and pulled out a small tranquiliser dart from one pocket.

Tadase began to run towards his opponent, kicking the Yoru to one side before Ikuto could grab the board and escape. In one swift, clean movement he pinned a struggling Ikuto to the floor and shoved the dart into his upper arm. Ikuto fell limp, glaring at Tadase with a scorching hatred, willing the nanobots in his arm to heal. Instantly his brain told him that the dart contained a substance that immobilised the surrounding nanobots.

"You..."

Then he fell to the ground, out cold.

"_Hotori Tadase!_"

"Ah--"

Amu landed the Snoppe and slapped Tadase right across the face. That, as well as the sweat from fighting Ikuto, removed the last of the makeup from his face, which had started to flare up again. His skin was pitted with dark red, inflamed pores and some of them leaked yellow pus. Tadase's chest was heaving. He was exhausted. He did not want a confrontation with Hinamori.

Amu seemed taken aback for a while before she started back up, putting on a steely front. "What did you do to him, you _bastard?!_"

"You don't need to know," Tadase managed to reply. "But I'll do this just to be safe."

Something hit her forehead, and the only thing she could see was a pair of red lights blinking in front of her eyes, before everything went pitch black.

-

Additional Notes

_Wipedart:_ A type of defence technology created by Kurosu Indistries. It has to make skin contact with a person before it detonates. Once it does, it will blank out a certain period of time. The default time is the last 5 minutes, though you can set it up to a maximum of the last 48 hours. The majority of the wipedart's customers are Mafia and other criminal establishments, who often place a modified wipedart (with no maximum) on a disloyal member. This is commonly known as a _blank wipedart_.

Another modified wipedart, the _stasisdart_, is used in the medical field because it can keep one's mind in a stasis, avoiding amnesia because it can retain most core information.

---

**Author's Note: **Short chapter; yours truly was out of inspiration. But yeah, this is practically a masterpiece compared to the original draft. Now...

I will begin working on a new story entitled _**Red Circle: Bride of Vengeance**_. Set in a new fantasy kingdom, this is a realm of armoured dragons and wild faes, mage skirmishes and rogue warlocks, ruthless assasinations and power struggles. I have been working on _**Red Circle**_ for 2 years, adding to it, combining old plot bunnies, and so on.

There are multiple lands in this setting; the first one is an Amuto set within the shadowland of Methis. It's going to be one hell of a ride, and expect me to focus heavily on the magic and the lore. Until we meet again, then...

Or, as the elves say, mai' dak, adaitha.


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